


All Dressed Up

by anticyclone



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Extra Treat, Fluff, Halloween, Humor, M/M, Seasonal, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Crowley is very invested in this year's costume, which in his defense is only half as scary as it could've been. Also in his defense (not that Crowley is happy about it), the local trick-or-treaters are not as scared of a snake monster person as you might expect.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	All Dressed Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingtothesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/gifts).



"The thing about handing out candy," Aziraphale said, guiding his scissors through the white paper in his hands with swordsmanlike precision, "is that one must actually use one's hands to bestow it to the children."

From the floor, Crowley grumbled.

Aziraphale looked up over the rims of his glasses. He raised his eyebrows in an innocent way, but Crowley knew every shade of blue there was, and Aziraphale's eyes were 'I-told-you-so' sky. "You were the one who sent me into town for the candy in the first place, my dear."

"There's just so many of them," Crowley said. "Every other minute. I barely lay down before I have to get up again. Shouldn't they be in bed by now?"

Aziraphale finished cutting the line he was on and glanced over at the grandfather clock in the sitting room. "It's not even seven o'clock."

On cue, the doorbell rang.

Crowley raised his head and slithered to the door.

Other people in the neighborhood were greeting trick or treaters from their front steps and porches. They'd started out there, too, Aziraphale set up with his craft supplies in a rocking chair and Crowley lurking appropriately in the shadows afforded by the greenery in front of their cottage porch.

Then Mrs. Humphrey next door had asked why Crowley didn't have a rattle on his costume and he'd decided it was better to lurk appropriately in the front hallway instead.

He was not sulking _or_ being overly touchy, no matter what Aziraphale said.

"I think your investment in the holiday is darling. Imagine, dressing up at our age," Mrs. Humphrey had said to Aziraphale, while Aziraphale had been packing up his paper and scissors and lap blanket to come back inside.

Aziraphale had told her, "We worked with some Americans for a while, I suppose it rubbed off."

"You could have been one of those wildlife TV people," Mrs. Humphrey had said. "What a cute couple's costume that would've been!"

"That would have been sweet," Aziraphale, the betrayer, had said back. He'd pointed to the tinsel-covered wire stick-and-circle headband on his head. "But I always wear the same thing. I like to keep it simple. Crowley's the one who goes all in for the holiday."

"It is a cute halo," Mrs. Humphrey, who Crowley was never going to speak to again, had said, before returning to her own porch.

The doorbell rang a second time just as Crowley came up to the door. He reared up straight, grabbed the handle, and flung it open.

He'd turned out most of the lights in the hall (except one small lamp, shining on Aziraphale, his silver scissors, and the ever-expanding pile of cut-up white paper in his lap) so the shadows would be at maximum melodrama.

Crowley wore his usual shirt and jacket, but no sunglasses, so any tiny child foolish enough to approach the front door would see yellow eyes gleaming at them from the dark. His body didn't turn snake until the middle, under his shirt, and he let the serpent part of him trail off into shadow in a sinister manner. The shining red scales of his underbelly stood out in the dim light, and the black scales melted entirely into the dark, leaving important unanswered questions about his exact magnitude.

He could not obviously be _less_ of a rattlesnake, and he resented Mrs. Humphrey's implication.

"Happy Halloween, kidsssss," he hissed, grinning wide enough to show off fangs.

On the front step stood a tall and maybe too old for trick-or-treating green-faced monster, a medium-sized skeleton holding a short and squat pumpkin's hand, and a ghost of indeterminate shape. The outline suggested there might be two kids under the sheet. Or maybe a kid and a small (large?) dog. All child facial expressions looked pretty much the same to Crowley, but if he squinted and thought Scottish thoughts, his work experience as Ashtoreth suggested all of the trick-or-treaters were scared out of their wits.

One (or maybe two? the ghost was very soft-spoken, for a ghost) voice said from underneath the sheet, "What are you supposed to be?"

Crowley held out the grinning black cat bowl Aziraphale had brought home from a secondhand shop last week, turned it upside down, and dumped every remaining piece of candy into the squat pumpkin's outstretched pillowcase. Partly because even a retired demon appreciated brazenness and partly because he was positive the pumpkin and the ghost(s) weren't related.

The delighted giggle from under the green leaf hat suggested there would be no sharing, anyway.

"I'm a ssssssnake," Crowley snapped. "And we're out of candy!"

"Wait, I don't think Mum wants us to have that much candy," the killjoy skeleton said, reaching toward its sibling's pillowcase.

Crowley snapped his fingers. The pumpkin suddenly found itself at the bottom of the stairs with the freedom to toddle, shrieking with laughter, off into the night. The skeleton gasped and blasted off after it.

"I was just asking," the ghost said, in two (or maybe one) voices. It hunched what were probably shoulders and slunk off to the next house.

The tall and probably too old for trick-or-treating green-faced monster was still staring at Crowley.

"What?" Crowley demanded.

"What kind of snake are you?" the monster asked.

From way back at the end of the hall, Crowley did _not_ hear Aziraphale say "How adorable," because if he'd said that then Crowley would have to complain at him about it.

"The first," Crowley said, grinning. His fangs were maybe more highlighted by the porch lights than they should've been. He was sure the expression on the kid's face now was 'impressed.' "What kind of monster are you?"

"Oh, Frankenstein was the monster," the kid said. It bent down, picked up a lollipop that had fallen out of the pumpkin's pillowcase, and put it into a plastic shopping bag.

Crowley watched it march onto the next house. Then he snapped his fingers and turned the lollipop into three chocolate bars. Trick-or-treating when you were too old for it should be properly rewarded.

Aziraphale set aside his scissors as Crowley slithered back into the house. "I take it we've run out of candy," he said, smiling.

Crowley locked the door and flipped on the light. By the time he got to the end of the hallway, he was on two feet again - no matter what his spine and hips thought. He started to drop himself onto Aziraphale's lap, but Aziraphale said "Ah, ah, careful!" and protectively gathered up all his white paper cut-outs, so Crowley had to redirect and flop onto an ottoman instead.

He put his chin on the arm of Aziraphale's chair. "We are out of candy," he confirmed. "What in Hell have you been cutting up all evening? S'a bit late for skeletons."

Aziraphale beamed.

Crowley squinted and miracled his sunglasses back onto his face.

Aziraphale gave him a Look, but quickly went back to smiling so brightly it lit up not just his face but the entire room. "I did make a couple of skeletons for the windows this morning, but that's not what I've been working on." He did one of his happy little wiggles and set all the paper back in his lap. Then he pinched one of the shapes between his fingertips and lifted it.

It was not a skeleton.

It was a snowflake.

"Angel," Crowley groaned. "It's not even _November._ Halloween isn't over yet!"

"It's never too early to prepare for Christmas," Aziraphale said. He delicately set the paper snowflake on top of Crowley's head.

Then he bent and pressed a kiss to Crowley's mouth, so Crowley didn't have room to complain even if he'd wanted. He leaned up and kissed back, settling a hand on Aziraphale's knee. It could have been worse. Aziraphale could have been cutting out little paper angels.


End file.
